Robotics & AI – A Major Opportunity for Saxony

At the event “Robotics & AI – A Major Opportunity for Saxony,” we joined forces with our partners to explore the potential of new technologies for the Free State of Saxony. Here’s what we learned.

In nature, the principle of natural selection applies: success belongs to those who manage to adapt to changing conditions. The same holds true in business. Any company that doesn’t want to end up as an industrial museum has to move with the times, try out new technologies and find out what works for them. The latest buzzwords in this game: robotics and generative models like ChatGPT.

On 9 June, together with our partners from the Wirtschaftsrat Deutschland (the German Economic Council) and Teradyne Robotics, we took a closer look at the potential of these two new technologies at the SpinLab, located in Leipzig’s historic former cotton mill, the Baumwollspinnerei.

Here we share our most striking impressions and key takeaways.

Learning #1: Generative models make robots accessible

The theory sounds simple: robots have perfect mechanical bodies. With generative models like ChatGPT, they now get the matching “brains” they need to finally act fully autonomously. But it isn’t quite that simple, as experiments by Boston Dynamics show: all too often, large language models (LLMs) keep cheerfully hallucinating away, even when they are placed inside a robot and thus “grounded” in reality.

Even so, the current developments are promising. Aleksej Tokarev from the Leipzig-based company Security Robotics Development & Solutions GmbH was able to demonstrate this live at our event: in an on-site test, the robot he had brought along – the dog-like, four-legged SPOT, connected to an AI language model – effortlessly located the open window in the room after a simple text command. Are we looking at the first step towards autonomous robots that we’ll be able to converse with quite naturally? We can’t wait to find out.

Learning #2: A passion for innovation pays off – for SMEs too

It seems clear that AI and robotics will continue to make their way into large corporations. But courage and a passion for innovation can pay off for small and medium-sized enterprises too, as Ronny Buch from Pulsotronic GmbH – a company specialising in sensor and connection technology – was able to show: he presented the case of introducing a compact, flexible potting system with a cobot robotic arm and let us follow along through every step of the rollout – stumbling blocks included.

His conclusion: SMEs should be bold when it comes to robotics and “just get started.” Even companies that don’t want to go “all in” right away, but instead take one small, well-judged step at a time, can still manage to keep pace.

Learning #3: Innovation needs a narrative.

Robotics and AI fire up our imagination. That’s a good thing – but it’s also a recurring breeding ground for hype. Will AI lead us into a new golden age within just a few years, one in which we no longer have to work ourselves, all diseases have been wiped out and scientific breakthroughs roll off the assembly line? Or will it, on the contrary, seize world domination, as in the film “Terminator”? Honestly: probably neither.

In his talk, our Managing Director Benedict Rehbein set out why hype cycles are so challenging for providers of new technologies: they fuel inflated expectations just as much as irrational fears. Companies find it hard to escape either. Which means they have to make a virtue of necessity. It isn’t enough to simply explain a technology. It has to be told as a story – with realistic yet optimistic narratives.

As co-organisers, we’d like to thank all the speakers and, of course, our many guests, who together with us made the event such a great success.

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